Bryce Young report card: How did Panthers’ QB, offense look in lone preseason appearance?

Carolina fans got a reason to hope on Saturday — finally.

Bryce Young, Dave Canales and the Panthers’ offense had a near-perfect opening drive Saturday in the preseason finale against Buffalo, scoring a touchdown with one of their most impressive marches of the past several years.

And after that, Young took a seat, awaiting the regular-season opener at New Orleans on Sept. 8. The backups came in and maintained the lead, as the Panthers won a surprisingly entertaining preseason game over the Bills, 31-26.

How good was it? Young used the word “great” 17 times to describe various aspects of the game in his postgame news conference. And that was in just five minutes. It was like he was conducting the press conference while imitating cereal pitchman Tony the Tiger. But on this day, the optimism did seem well-founded.

The Panthers were content to go one-and-done with their first-team offense in Buffalo — the “one” being that 12-play, 85-yard drive in which Young completed his first five passes. Then, after two incompletions inside the 10, the second-year QB fired a third-down dart to tight end Jordan Matthews for an 8-yard touchdown pass on the game’s opening drive.

“It was great, right?” Canales said afterward — yeah, he likes that word, too. “Couldn’t have dreamt it better. You know, a nice long drive — 12 plays to get the guys some good work, get them tired in the drive. A fourth-down conversion in there. Saw him (Young) extend plays with his legs, keeping his eyes down the field, finding guys. You can see the carryover from the practices to the game.”

The play design on the touchdown to Matthews, a converted wide receiver, was gorgeous. The offensive line protection for most of the series was similarly good — even though the line was missing two starters due to personal reasons — as Carolina took a 7-0 lead early in the game.

It was Young and the first-team offense’s only playing time of the preseason, as Carolina had played the backups throughout the entire first two exhibitions, leading to a lot of desultory football. After Carolina scored zero points in its final two games of the 2023 regular season, and then only one touchdown total in its first two preseason games (and that from a running back who was released two days later), Panthers fans were understandably brimming with angst.

Not Saturday. This was the sort of march that Panthers fans dreamed of for most of last year while Young was being sacked 62 times and the team was floundering to a 2-15 record.

Said Young afterward in his press conference: “It felt great for all of us to go out and play against a different team. ... We got a couple different situations we got to have, which was great for us. Really, it’s just fun competing and fun being out there with my team and my guys.”

It wasn’t completely unexpected. Young and the offense acquitted themselves well in a controlled scrimmage against the New York Jets on Aug. 15 in Charlotte, which was an eye-opener to me. But that wasn’t televised, and so no one saw it outside of the 2,000 or so spectators watching. This was televised and far more public.

This Panthers offense — albeit against a Buffalo team resting all of its starters — looked nothing like the ghostly one of 2023. Young constantly hit receivers who were getting open, starting with an 8-yard throw on his first play out of a double tight-end set.

His most impressive play involved one of his new weapons. Canales decided to go for it on fourth-and-3 from the Buffalo 46. Young scrambled left to keep the play alive, then lofted a ball to wide receiver Diontae Johnson. Johnson grabbed it for a 17-yard gain as the Panthers converted on the sort of play they basically never converted on a year ago.

Young also had a 21-yard strike to Adam Thielen and a nice 13-yard throw to rookie tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders, as Canales showed with his play-calling how much he likes using tight ends in the passing game (even with the top two tight ends, Tommy Tremble and Ian Thomas, out).

And even the one sack Young did take wasn’t a bad play — Young dodged three tacklers before getting back to the line of scrimmage for what was technically a zero-yard sack. He ended up 6-of-8 for 70 yards, with one touchdown and a 140.6 QB rating. The other 15 yards in the drive came on three Chuba Hubbard carries on consecutive plays.

In other words, it couldn’t have gone much better. “Sharp” was Canales’ word for it. Give Young, Canales and the first-team offense an A+ for this effort. And the backups played well, too. I know it was just preseason, but for the past several years, any time the Panthers score more than 30 points in a game is a cause for fireworks.

As for Young: It was only one drive. Young was replaced for Carolina’s second march by Jack Plummer (as backup QB Andy Dalton once again didn’t play, although he could have). And, again, let’s remember these 85 total yards in that one drive came against Buffalo’s reserves.

Still, it was something else.

And although it’s not going to be like that all the time, that one drive and those 12 plays will give Panthers fans a lot to fantasize about for the next two weeks until the games begin for real.